Richter, a professional street mime, in addition to playing the lead ape was also responsible for choreographing the movements of the other man-apes, who were mostly portrayed by his standing mime troupe.

Includes SFMZ's 'HAL Running Loose in Photoshop,' importing key frames from certain sequences into Photoshop and merging them using layers and fading effects to compose the complete picture. Now you can see a wider view of 2001 ASO panoramic scenes such as Frank in the centrifuge, the nuclear club, star child, and beyond the infinite.

Any true 2001 ASO fan knows the film's toilet instructions are absolutely critical to the plot! Okay, maybe not, but after reading these instructions, you may realize you have been taking your gravity-imprisoned toilet for granted.

Quotes of Praise

In The New Yorker, Penelope Gilliatt said it was "some kind of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor … The film is hypnotically entertaining, and it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing."

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times opined that it was "the picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future … it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film."

Louise Sweeney of The Christian Science Monitor felt that 2001 was "a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology. It's also a dazzling 160-minute tour on the Kubrick filmship through the universe out there beyond our earth."

Philip French wrote that the film was "perhaps the first multi-million-dollar supercolossal movie since D.W. Griffith's Intolerance fifty years ago which can be regarded as the work of one man … Space Odyssey is important as the high-water mark of science-fiction movie making, or at least of the genre's futuristic branch."

The Boston Globe's review indicated that it was "the world's most extraordinary film. Nothing like it has ever been shown in Boston before or, for that matter, anywhere … The film is as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life."

Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his original review, believing the film "succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale." He later put it on his Top 10 list for Sight & Sound.

Time provided at least seven different mini-reviews of the film in various issues in 1968, each one slightly more positive than the preceding one; in the final review dated December 27, 1968, the magazine called 2001 "an epic film about the history and future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing." Director Martin Scorsese has also listed it as one of his favourite films of all time.

Science-fiction novelist Samuel R. Delany who was impressed by how the film undercuts the audience's normal sense of space and orientation in several ways. Like Bradbury, Delany picked up on the banality of the dialogue (in Delany's phrasing the characters are saying nothing meaningful), but Delany regards this as a dramatic strength, a prelude to the rebirth at the conclusion of the film.

Top Film Lists

In 1991, 2001 ASO was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

In 1995, the Vatican named it as one of the 45 best films ever made (and included it in a sub-list of the "Top Ten Art Movies" of all time.)

No. 40 on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Thrills, was included on its 100 Years, 100 Quotes ("Open the pod bay doors, Hal.")